Dino id

[Gengivo]

Seems like I switched from coolia to ? amphidinium?

 

[mcarroll]

Seems like you have a lot more than dino's going.....so maybe less of a worry, more like "just an algae bloom."

Consider reading the first post and posting in the main dino thread in this sub-forum. (Thread is for toxic dino blooms.)

So some preliminaries.....

How are you pods? Healthy? Missing in action?
How is you CUC? Missing? Acting drunk? Stunned?
How are your corals?

A full tank shot might be informative.

As would a full read of your tanks water tests...inlcuding everyting, s.g., temperature, nutrients, minerals, et al.

 

[Gengivo]

Cuc Is alive and well. Only a sinularia seems to be affected, shedding every 5-7 days.
NO3 10
PO4 0.03
Kh 8
Ca 435
Mg 1450
temp 24.5 - 25
PH 8.1
I'm dosing silicate once a week

 

[mcarroll]

Cuc Is alive and well. Only a sinularia seems to be affected, shedding every 5-7 days.
NO3 10
PO4 0.03
Kh 8
Ca 435
Mg 1450
temp 24.5 - 25
PH 8.1
I'm dosing silicate once a week

Hm.

How are you cleaning and filtering the tank currently?

Anything unusual about the sinularia's position in the tank? E.g. is it high up, or at the bottom, or next to the powerhead or furthest from it? What are its nearest neighbors?

PO4 is pretty low...depending on the accuracy of your kit perhaps signficantly lower than 0.03.....IMO provie relief for the tank here. Either stop or remove filtration that would lower PO4 or dose PO4 to a target (0.10 ppm)

Seems like the rest of the numbers are good.

 

[Gengivo]

Hm.

How are you cleaning and filtering the tank currently?

Anything unusual about the sinularia's position in the tank? E.g. is it high up, or at the bottom, or next to the powerhead or furthest from it? What are its nearest neighbors?

PO4 is pretty low...depending on the accuracy of your kit perhaps signficantly lower than 0.03.....IMO provie relief for the tank here. Either stop or remove filtration that would lower PO4 or dose PO4 to a target (0.10 ppm)

Seems like the rest of the numbers are good.

i'm dosing 2ml (100L tank) seachem reef phosphorus every day, started 2 months ago.No filtration at all, only DSB and rocks. I think the dinos eat all the PO4 and then i remove them when i clean the 100 micron sock

 

[DaJMasta]

I agree raising phosphate is probably good towards a long term solution, the balance between nitrate and phosphate should favor phosphate a bit more than it is now, 0.03ppm phosphate would be ok if your nitrate was really low, but at a more normal nitrate level, it seems more phosphate (0.1ppm or so) will get around some coral health issues. Softies tend to prefer a bit more nutrients anyways.

While I can't ID the beaked Dino off hand, there are also diatoms on that slide, so yeah I think more general algae bloom is the right idea.

 

[mcarroll]

Hm.

How are you cleaning and filtering the tank currently?

Anything unusual about the sinularia's position in the tank? E.g. is it high up, or at the bottom, or next to the powerhead or furthest from it? What are its nearest neighbors?

PO4 is pretty low...depending on the accuracy of your kit perhaps signficantly lower than 0.03.....IMO provie relief for the tank here. Either stop or remove filtration that would lower PO4 or dose PO4 to a target (0.10 ppm)

Seems like the rest of the numbers are good.

i'm dosing 2ml (100L tank) seachem reef phosphorus every day, started 2 months ago.No filtration at all, only DSB and rocks. I think the dinos eat all the PO4 and then i remove them when i clean the 100 micron sock

Either you need to dose more quantity per dose or do that dose more frequently.

How dirty is your deep sand bed?

I don't think your issue is dino's per se....too many other critters also showing up in your sample.

To wit: How is your cleanup crew? How abut pods? If your pods have disappeared and your CUC seems "drunk" or have been dying, then you may have a toxic algae bloom. If not, then IMO this is just "the uglies" that happens to include some dinoflagellates in the mix.

If you want an idea about how a dino bloom happens and what it looks like check out the dino mega thread in the nuiscance algae subforum.....read the breakdown in the first post. There are lots of good resources there....but I'm not sure you'll find that they apply to your situation.

The object of raising nutrient levels is to provide sufficient nutrients for LOTS of beneficial (but more delicate than pest algae) organisms to populate your rock in place of the pest algae. No available nutrients means no new organisms. <0.03 ppm PO4 is going to be too low for many critters IMO, especially if you're only dosing up for it to return to 0.0 ppm by your next dose.

Try dosing PO4 up to 0.10 ppm and try not to let it get much lower than that for the near term. The first time you dose that high, try testing an hour later and see if you already need to dose again. Even if the second dose is required, that usually gets the tank over the "demand hump" that is common when you're in this position.

 

[EnterName]

Just to answer the ID question, yes that's Amphidinium (or one of the look-alikes).

Your silicate dosing seems to start working as we can already see a few diatoms in the recordings. It's not too much though, I would increase the supplied amount or it most likely won't have any effect. Dinos and Diatoms can live next to each other quite well so to really "outcompete" them you will need a lot.